friend.

Hello all :)

I promised birthday party pictures and they are soon to arrive but I had the urge to post this tonight.

Compassion.

I have been facing some shadows with certain family members of mine, and it's been a really rough road. It's a female member of my family who is very dear to me, and it's been very hard for me to try and stay positive and be compassionate towards this person because of this situation. Without giving to many details, because it's a very personal matter, I never realized how my relationship with this person and these trials effected me on such a massive scale.

Lately I have had this feeling.
This craving.
A deep primal urge for a female connection. For a circle, a tribe of women to be surrounded and supported by. To be my strength when I feel weak, and vice verse. Even just one, one true friend who would listen to me ramble, laughing over coffee while our children played, or just letting me cry and just hugging me.

I had this, in high school. When I was younger. A few certain friends and I were inseparable. But life and time have a funny way of putting spaces between you that you can feel like you can't get across. One went off to a different college and is still single and living the young mid 20's life. Another is also married with a little one, and working full time. Several others over time have fallen off after I got married and especially after Layla was born.

I feel like I haven't been able to reconnect in a way on a intimate level with them, although we do our best to keep in touch. Life just flies by and before you know it, you realize your list of friends has dwindled down to less than a few.

I am curious if there are other mothers, women, young women, older women who feel like this.

I feel like lately (and this could be hormones and PMS talking...lol), I could cry at the slightest bit of emotional connection, for the sheer relief of it. That feeling of being supported and cared for by another, of just love untainted. Truth has been moving me so much. Realness. A picture of a woman who obviously has conceived and birthed several children, her open, honesty, of her naked frame, the stretch marks the wrinkled loose skin, age, it literally made my breath catch in my throat.

We need more of this. More exposure. My raw unapologetic truth. We have been spoiled on perfection and it's boring and predictable. And sad. Give me real. Any day.

I send my intention out into the universe that a true female friend will be brought to me when the time is right. Someone to supplement my life. Someone who wants to be friends with me because they genuinely appreciate my company and feel enriched by being close to me as well.

I know these feelings stem from what is going on with said female family member, but I feel like really that just barely scratched the surface of a desire for a connection. The purity of true friendship, intimacy, joy in being around someone that you relate to on so many levels.

These are just some thoughts that have been running around in my mind of late. For those of you reading this, have you ever felt like this? And if you have a female friend in your life whether it be a sister, mother, daughter, or best girlfriend, tell her how much she means to you or better yet show her. I almost wrote to pick up the phone but no...GO. Go see her. Go hug her. Sometimes a hug can mean so much more than the sum of itself.

There are not enough hugs being given.

Give more hugs. And more compassion. And more truth.